


List of Problems

by StevetheIcecube



Series: The Beauty of Tony Stark and Tony Feels [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Bruce is worried, But she doesn't love him, Clint put his foot in his mouth, Contemplation of Suicide, F/M, Tony Angst, Tony Feels, Tony Has Issues, Tony Hates Water, Tony Loves Pepper, Tony Stark-centric, Unrequited Love, smiling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2017-12-29 07:19:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StevetheIcecube/pseuds/StevetheIcecube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times that something was wrong with Tony and someone noticed, and one time that they actually did something to help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Screams

**Author's Note:**

> This fic took a long time. Like, two days XD It will, as the summary suggests, be split into six parts.
> 
> Song quote for this chapter: 'I do my best to block out the screams' which was the quote that sparked the whole fic.

A nice innocent horror movie, something to culture Steve with. They expected him to be scared, after all, he hadn't really lived in the age of horror movies. In truth, they'd picked a weak horror movie and had decided only to watch one. They were all scared that they'd see something a little too familiar. Bruce had even decided to skip the movie for fear of it being too much of a trigger.

All in all, they expected Steve to be the most affected, maybe Natasha if she let her guard down.

So why was it Tony who was curled in on himself, trying desperately to block out sounds that weren't there?

JARVIS turned the movie off the second it happened, but it caused no change in Tony. Natasha stretched slightly before getting off of the couch, motioning for the others to do the same. "JARVIS, where is Pepper?"

"She left for Malibu not ten minutes ago, Agent Romanoff." JARVIS responded. "Should I call Doctor Banner instead?"

Natasha nodded. "Bruce has the best chance of calming Tony down." And that was the truth of it. None of the other Avengers knew Tony well enough to be able to help him in a panic attack for which there were no triggers they knew of. The whole movie had only consisted of screaming, so far.

They all stepped away from Tony, who was breathing quickly and rocking slightly as he tried to block his ears. His mouth was open in a silent whimper.

Bruce ran into the room a couple of minutes later, visibly distressed. Everyone took several steps away from him, too. "Tony." He said quietly. There was no response nor change in Tony's actions. "Tony, you're not there, you're on the common floor. I'm the only one speaking." Tony sat down next to Tony on the couch and put a hesitant hand on Tony's shoulder.

Clint and Natasha flinched.

Tony's reaction was odd, not the usual fighting response to contact when in physical contact whilst in a flashback. He instead flinched away, but then leaned into Bruce's touch. At the response, Bruce mumbled comforting nonsense to Tony.

It seemed like hours later when Tony removed his hands from his ears and fled the room.

It was the first sign that something was wrong.


	2. Water Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers have to do something for PR.

The second time was a little odder.

A PR stunt, an opening of a charity aquarium that SHIELD had a name on somewhere, somehow.

So, the Avengers were at the aquarium, and their job was to give off a vibe that they were very close, almost a family, and they were to keep up a light banter throughout the afternoon.

It wasn't that difficult, really. Banter, of course, came naturally. It always did. But the family vibe would have been more difficult, if it were not for the sheer amount of people, everywhere, and all the water, that was often above their heads. It was stressing, but they managed to keep the act up and it wasn't all fake, and they smiled as much as they could.

It was a great success with the public, and at the end of the day, they were congratulated by the main funder of the aquarium for such a good draw to the place.

Tony seemed as normal as they could expect, afterwards. He was a little quieter than he usually was, but it was all to be expected, really.

The thing that wasn't expected was the way Tony kept tilting his head, as if there was water in his ears.

Bruce left it for a couple of hours, thinking that he was imagining it, or that Tony would sort it out in a short while.

But it became clear that it was all in Tony's head, and Bruce decided to bring it up.

"Tony, are you okay? You're acting like you have water in your ears."

Tony shrugged, deep in his work and clearly not listening.

"Tony, you've been doing it for hours."

Tony looked up briefly and stuck a finger in one of his ears for a moment. "Oh, it's nothing. A feeling sometimes that I can't shake. I'll feel like I have water in my ears, but I don't. Happens after my PTSD sparks up, usually. It will go away after a few days."

Tony was right, of course. Three days and then it was gone.

But Bruce couldn't help but add it to the subconscious mental list he had of all the mental problems his friend had that he needed to look out for.


	3. Smiling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then Tony stopped smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It starts to get a little heavier now, though not as bad as later.

It was a week or so later that Tony stopped smiling. It seemed innocent enough for the first few hours. Tony was a zombie in the mornings, getting acknowledgement out of him was hard enough, let alone a smile or, god forbid, an intelligent response.

But then Pepper arrived from Malibu to go on vacation with Tony. They did this every two months, to give Pepper a break from her work. At the end of it, Pepper came back relaxed, and Tony came back healthier.

Tony didn't smile once when Pepper arrived.

Typically, Tony had forgotten to pack, or packed the wrong things, or had something urgent to finish, so he went to do that. Pepper went to talk to Bruce.

"How long has this been going on?" She asked. "The not-smiling thing." She added, when Bruce met her phrase with confusion.

Bruce's expression furrowed. "He hasn't smiled all day, but he never smiles in the morning, anyway. I didn't think anything of it."

Pepper sighed. "Okay. Let me know if you think of anything else that could be to do with it. I'll talk to Tony on the way to Venice."

*A*

"Smile for me Tony, just for a second." Pepper said, studying Tony's face closely, leaning forward slightly in her chair.

Tony quirked his lips slightly, but it didn't really look like a smile. Just a ghost of the famous smirk. "Oh, Tony." Pepper said softly. "What's wrong?"

Tony closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "I don't know, Pep. My PTSD is worse and other things are getting to me, too. I woke up today and I didn't /want/ to smile. I don't think I can." His voice was unbearably sad and sounded lost.

Pepper kissed him sweetly, knowing that Tony wasn't feeling up to passion. Something felt different, though. It took her a second, but she realized it was because when she kissed Tony like this, he used to smile against her lips. "I'm sorry, Pep." Tony whispered as he pulled away.

*A*

Their vacation was not a happy one like it usually was. Pepper couldn't enjoy it the way she always used to, knowing that there was something very wrong with Tony mentally, and that reflected in Tony, whose nightmares were worse than ever.

By the final day, Tony was exhausted and miserable. He'd seen the way Pepper was looking at him. She didn't want to take care of a headcase, she wanted a relationship with a quirky man. She wasn't going to get that with him, not any more.

But he didn't want to bring it up. He didn't want to end it. So he ignored the issue and sat in silence on the plane, casually shifting through his emails. When he was done, he removed the heart next to Pepper's name on his contacts. Then put it back again.

Just because she didn't love him didn't mean he shared that feeling.


	4. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony isn't sleeping, and the Avengers send Clint to talk to him.

There wasn't a time, when anyone checked, that Tony was asleep. During the night, Tony was either in his workshop or on the communal floor, and when he was there he was always drinking coffee.

He always had a mask on his emotions. It was seamless, sure, but all but Thor had pretended to be someone they weren't frequently, and could recognize that there was a mask. But it was a good enough pretence that no one, not even Natasha, could work out what the real emotion was, the one under the mask. JARVIS wouldn't tell them what the real emotion was, either, and they did ask.

The only thing they had was that Tony never pretended to be happy. He mostly just pretended that he was tired (which by his awareness they knew that he wasn't), or he'd put on his press mask, of sincere maturity and responsibility.

They didn't know how much Tony slept. He didn't appear to be any more tired than he was before the constant masks, and Tony had clearly perfected make-up to an art, so without pouring water on his face (which for obvious reasons they were not going to do), they wouldn't know what Tony looked like underneath.

And he still never smiled (the smiling thing had reached Bruce's list the day the pair returned from their vacation).

Everyone was endlessly worried, so they elected Clint to bring it up with him.

So Clint got up at three in the morning and went to the communal kitchen. "Hey Tony." He said, spying the man leaning against the counter.

Tony nodded in greeting, taking a sip from the ever-present mug of coffee in his hands.

"Look, the team put me up to this-" Clint started.

"You're going to preach to me about how I'm not sleeping enough." Tony said, clearly exasperated. "JARVIS does have cameras, you know."

Clint sighed. "When did you last sleep and for how long?"

"Jarv? Nope, never mind, it was seventeen hours, twelve minutes and forty-three seconds ago for one minute and fifty seconds."

Clint raised his eyebrows. "I doubt that you know that Tony, unless you and JARVIS have a mind link or something."

"That's a good idea." Tony said. "And I got paranoid, or my brain did, anyway. Can't stop counting. It makes it hard to sleep." Tony sighed and quirked his mouth in an attempt at a wry smile that looked very forced and rather sad. It didn't really look like a smile at all.

Clint reported back to the group, and all Bruce could do was sigh and add something else to his list.


	5. Passive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is both too short and depressing (it was on paper anyway. This is the longest chapter I've ever written on mobile and it's about two or three chapters worth of stuff added).
> 
> Something happened to Tony and now everything has changed.

And then Tony disappeared for a week. He went out for a drive and never came back. A lot of people presumed that he was drunk (which was probably true, he'd been drunk a lot lately), and some people thought that he had crashed and died. When the information came out in SHIELD that Tony, unlike usual, had not been wearing any trackers in his clothes, and it was listed in his file as possible suicide.

Three months and they gave up the hunt for him. He was listed dead, in a car crash. The information was released to the press. There was a funeral, Pepper mourned him, it seemed that the whole world mourned for him.

Everyone moved on. JARVIS moved on, kept running the Tower, following the written orders in both his code and Tony's will that everything should continue on and be the same without him. The Avengers kept going out to calls, with Colonel Rhodes as Iron Man. It wasn't the same, but everything still went on.

Two months after that, Stark Industries recieved a package. The people scanning it noticed first that there was something living in there. JARVIS said that it was a human being and not dangerous at all from the vitals he could read (the pulse was surprisingly concealed, but the pacemaker was something JARVIS could detect).

The box was opened to reveal a man, trembling and making terrified noises, shying away from light and everyone. He was rushed to hospital and named a John Doe, at least until he woke up. If he remembered anything, of course, as there was a high likelihood that he would be too scared, have amnesia, or not be able to tell them anything useful about himself (the slave trade still went on, said the police).

He was in a bad shape. Starved and at least half the weight he should have been, bruised all over, with a couple of infected cuts and numerous others. And that was after they washed off a good three months, if not more, of blood and grime from his body. He had a beard of about five and a half months, and long, dark brown hair that had been matted with filth too.

He was in a very bad shape but had been surprisingly aware of his surroundings when he was found in the box.

Now all they had to do was wait for him to wake up.

*A*

The man woke up when no one was there, and he was alert almost immediately. He didn't speak, didn't make any sound at all, not even when three nurses entered the room.

The man pulled weakly at his restraints, but didn't struggle too much and still said nothing. "Sir, will you hold still if we remove your arm restraints?" One nurse asked.

The man nodded slightly and the nurse undid his restraints. "Sir, you were found two days ago in a box delivered to Stark Tower. Do you know how you got there?"

The man looked around nervously. "Am I allowed to talk?" He said quietly.

The nurse nodded, her face not betraying the horror she felt at how meek this man was.

"I was kidnapped from my car." He said quietly. "I don't know how long ago, but I was taken...somewhere...and tortured." His breath hitched slightly and he looked down.

The nurse nodded again. "Can you tell us who you are?"

He nodded. "I'm Tony Stark."

Natasha almost gasped, but she held it back. Steve, posing as another nurse, didn't manage it, though Bruce did quite well (excluding the roars of the Hulk that Natasha heard from the Hulk Room about three hours later). Tony, and she could see now that it was him, it seemed so obvious now she knew, was kept in the Stark Tower with the medical services there, as Pepper had seen it as her responsibility for this man, seeing as he had been dropped here.

*A*

There were so many tears from Pepper, lots of press to sort out, lots of psych evaluations that Tony had to go through, but it was managed eventually. Everything was mostly on track as it was before.

Sure, JARVIS' list of Tony's triggers was nearing fifty now, after two days of Tony being released to have a life again, do work again, and Tony had had multiple panic attacks and was getting used to seeing sunlight, and not needing permission to speak, and not being beaten for every wrong movement, but he was getting on with it.

But he seemed to care about everything a lot less now. He had stopped masking what he felt, and it revealed that all in all, he really didn't care.

He didn't care what anyone thought about him (he refused (tentatively) to have any press or board meetings), he didn't care about any form of opinion that anyone had, not even his own. He was a passive presence (though not exactly a presence, he was never around) with a lot of intelligence and a lot of money. That was it.

Whenever he showed for even half an hour, it was unbearably sad to observe him, the way he used to be so full of life, of energy, in a happy, caring relationship with an amazing woman, a company that was earning him money that he could fill all the land he owned with, most likely. He was clever and well-regarded.

Now?

A man in a can, sad and passive, money not meaning anything when he never bought anything himself, and all he had of his relationship was something that was technically still going on, but there was little love in it any more.

It was a wonder that Tony still wanted to be alive, the way things were going for him.


	6. And That One Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce sees Tony on the roof.

Bruce went up onto the roof of the Tower to think. He often did, though he never could when 'his vitals indicated he had not had a pleasant day'. JARVIS had some kind of protocol for that. Bruce had presumed that Tony wrote it for him and for himself (he didn't believe Tony when he denied attempts in front of the press), but when he went up there, the first thing he saw was Tony standing ver, very close to the edge.

"Tony." He called warily.

Tony turned around. Bruce breathed in sharply at the look of utter sadness on Tony's face.

"Tony, are you feeling okay?"

"Did I ever feel okay?" Tony snapped. "There's always been something wrong with me. You even have a list."

"How-" Bruce stuttered, before Tony interrupted.

"Everyone does." He said bitterly. "Everyone. I thought that you might be different, just maybe, because you've had things yourself...but no. You have a list, just like everyone else."

"Oh." Bruce couldn't quite think of what to say.

"Yes, oh." Tony said, sighing. "I'm just a fuck-up."

Bruce stepped a little closer to Tony, trying to get there before something happened. Before it would be too late to catch him (he debated that if Tony jumped off, that he could maybe call the Other Guy, get him to catch him). "You're not, Tony. You've changed so many things for the better with your mind."

Tony laughed bitterly. "My mind. My mind, which causes me to be unable to smile, or pour water on my face, or hear too many screams. My mind is so paranoid it makes me count every passing second. My mind is loud, distracting. It even gives me a headache."

"Oh, Tony." Bruce said softly. "I'll-I'll see if I can help. In any way possible." 'Just please get away from the edge of the roof.' He added in his head.

"It doesn't always seem worth it, to suffer the shit I do." Tony added.

"I'll do my best to make it worth it." Bruce said, catching Tony as he stepped away from the edge of the roof and promptly fell over. "You need to sleep." Bruce noted.

"Uh." Tony shifted. "Could you stay in the room, maybe? I just, you know, can't sleep without someone there. You don't have to, it's just...

"Please."

Bruce nodded and Tony's eyes lit up in the way they hadn't in months.


End file.
